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Tips for Your 30s

Supercharge Your Turbo
The shortcut to fitness is interval training, says Robertson. Brief, intense bursts of exercise at 80 percent to 95 percent of your maximum heart rate, interspersed with recovery interludes during which your heart rate returns to normal, burn more calories than steady, less-intense efforts do. They also improve performance. For instance, cyclists doubled their endurance after just 2 weeks of sprint interval training, according to a study in the Journal of Applied Physiology. Interval-training principles also apply to running, stair-climbing, rowing, and circuits.

Hit Your Fighting Weight
In this decade, your metabolism slows and your body-fat percentage creeps up. It's critical to keep that number below 22 (18 is optimal); research shows that doing this reduces your risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease, says Heidi Skolnik, C.D.N., nutritionist for the New York Giants. "The two biggest diet saboteurs for busy men are calories from drinks and binge-eating sessions caused by staying late at work," she says. Solution: Find a low-calorie drink you can sip all day. Skolnik recommends green tea, because it also revs your metabolism. Also, stock your desk drawer with healthy, filling snacks, such as instant oatmeal, beef jerky, dried fruit, cans of tuna, and wholegrain crackers.

Make Training More Fun
The most effective and enjoyable way to prepare for an endurance event is to join a group-training program. Canadian research shows that you're more likely to stick to a workout program if you train with others rather than going solo. British researchers note that you're also more likely to push yourself much harder. Team in Training, for example, specializes in taking people from the couch to a marathon, triathlon, or century bike ride in a 5-month training program run by certified coaches. Along the way, you raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and meet fitness-minded, charitable women: Nationwide, 73 percent of TNT participants are female.

Prevent Back Pain
Boyle tailored the 30s strength segment to focus on body-weight exercises that develop endurance and coordination. That means replacing high-weight, low-rep lifts with lower-weight, higher-rep sets, and doing some exercises on one leg. "As you grow older, you should begin to decrease spinal loading," he says. "Lifting higher reps with a lighter load still yields benefits, but with less structural stress." Boyle's workout also includes Swiss-ball rollouts, which help you build core strength and endurance. In fact, men with poor muscular endurance in their lower back are three times as likely to develop back pain than those with fair or good endurance, according to a study in Clinical Biomechanics.